Oral surgery

I assume you're not on any pain meds. 

Mark

A couple of days is fine and seems entirely appropriate; honestly, I really could use some recovery time been training pretty hard the last 2 months.  But this document I got says a couple of weeks, that prompted me to email my doc and seek advise of others here.  Thx

Took a couple of Vicodin yesterday, today don't need them.  Will keep and sell on the street (gotta finance my triathlon habit somehow).

I had oral surgery this past Wednesday as well (wisdom teeth) and also read various reports of people returning back after 2-3 days and some who had to take off 2-3 weeks and was a bit concerned.  Strenuous activity may cause the healing process to take longer since your body is using its resources to repair the damage done.

I think the key is to listen to your body and ease back into it.  For my schedule, I took Wed - Sun off and started back up Monday.  During this week I planned a "recovery" week with lower intensity and lower distance to make sure I didn't overdo it and so far has been going well.  I'll go back to normal distances next week.

I am actually an oral surgeon and do triathlon.  How much time off depends on a few things.  After a procedure like removal of wisdom teeth, I would say that 5-7 days without strenuous activity is reasonable.  You can swim even before that.  Even wisdom teeth can vary.  Some are more impacted than others and the surgery is more involved.  After a routine extraction or a dental implant, the recovery can even be faster.

Your nutrition may not be optimized either since you may be on a softer diet. I always encourage patients to make sure they get enough protein so they can heal better.  I don't need to tell you that your nutrition will affect your performance.

Euredraith has the right idea though...listen to your body.  If you are tired, in pain, or even worse, bleeding...STOP.  All that being said, I am the worst patient.  A few seasons ago I had some major abdominal surgery and went back to training after 2 weeks (was supposed to be out 4 weeks minimum).  My wound opened and I ended up with an open wound for a while and now multiple revisions.  It's not really worth the extra few days off if you compromise you long term outcome.

Reading through and see that you got the clarification that I was going to post.